JOHN MARSHALL TAPS WOMAN TO LEAD SCHOOL
By Kate Schott 
Chicago Law Bulletin    
March 13, 2003

The new dean of The John Marshall Law School brings with her a vibrant personality and diverse background, school officials said.

Patricia Mell, a professor at Michigan State University-Detroit College of Law, will begin the job July 1. She is both the first black and first female dean in John Marshall's 104-year history.

"We thought her personality and her background would be just what we need at this time," said Thomas J. Durkin, vice president of the school's Board of Trustees and chair of the dean search committee.

"We wanted a dean to be selected from outside our school environment," he said. "She comes well recommended. She has good ideas."
Mell concentrates in criminal, e-commerce and corporate law.

In a phone interview, Mell said she is optimistic about the challenges she faces.

"Every law school has challenges and over the last few years the bar passage rate for John Marshall has been disappointing," she said. "That's not something that's impossible to turn around."

While the overall pass rate for the July 2002 Illinois bar exam was down from the year before, John Marshall accounted for the largest drop of the schools in the state with 56 percent of its first-time test takers having passed the bar. The school garnered a 73 percent pass rate the year before.

"You really have to attack [the problem] on a number of levels," Mell said. She said she and others will examine the school's admission process, academic programs and other areas.

Improving the school's bar passage rate will also "require the assistance of alumni," she said.

"I look forward to meeting them, gaining their support and input," she said.

Mell will replace Dean Robert Gilbert Johnston, who said he will take one year off and then return to teaching. Johnston has been dean since 1995.

He said of Mell: "When you meet her you'll discover that she's just a wonderful person to visit with. She has a diverse background in both practicing and teaching [law]. She has an administrative background in legal education. She has done some excellent writing in the area of privacy."

Mell grew up in Cleveland and graduated from Case Western Reserve University Law School in 1978. After law school she served as an assistant attorney general for the Ohio attorney general's office and later served as corporation counsel for the Ohio secretary of state's office.

Mell began teaching in 1984 and has taught at several schools in Ohio and Michigan.

She joined the faculty at Michigan State University in 1996 and for three years served as associate dean for academic affairs at the law school. Currently, she is a visiting professor at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law teaching criminal and white-collar criminal law.

Mell, 49, is married to Dr. Michael Ragland, an obstetrician and gynecologist. She is a stepmother to three.

Mell said she enjoys the arts and opera, and is a docent for the Detroit Institute of Art.